Personal care products play an important role in the life of most consumers. Personal care products cover a wide variety of products and forms and include shampoos, soaps, hair sprays, lotions, creams, antiperspirants, anti-acne products, nail enamels, lipsticks, foundations, mascaras, and sunscreens. Consumers are constantly seeking personal care products that provide the desired benefit sought and represent a good value.
Many personal care products use contain various resins, gums, and adhesive polymers. The polymers are used for a variety of purposes including thickening, feel properties, film-forming ability, active deposition, active penetration, hair holding, etc. Consequently there is constantly a search for developing polymers having improved properties for use in personal care products.
It has surprisingly been found in the present invention that adhesive copolymers having certain physical parameters are highly useful. These copolymers are used in combination with a solvent for the copolymer selected from the group consisting of water, ethanol, n-propanol, isopropanol, and mixtures thereof. The copolymer solvent mixtures, when dried, have a cohesive strength of greater than about 0.5 kgf/mm.sup.2, a total energy absorption per unit volume of greater than about 0.55 kgfmm/mm.sup.3, and an impact strength of greater than about 7000 ergs. Without being limited by theory, it is believed that these physical characteristics of the dried hair spray composition account for the benefits observed.
It has also been found that the preferred hair spray compositions of the present invention ave an improved removeability from hair during shampooing, wherein the removeability is defined in terms of hair stiffness and hair flaking values ranging from 0 to about 3.5 (0 to 4 scale) These hair stiffness and flaking values are indirect measures of hair spray removeability. Each of these values are determined in accordance with the methodology defined herein.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide personal care compositions comprising an adhesive copolymer and a solvent for the copolymer selected from the group consisting of water, ethanol, n-propanol, isopropanol, acetone, propylene glycol, and mixtures thereof.
It is another object of this invention to provide methods for treating skin or hair using these compositions.
It is another object of this invention to provide methods for styling and holding hair.
These and other objects will become readily apparent from the detailed description which follows.